I finished knitting this about a month ago, and it’s already become a favourite.
It goes with lots of things, it’s smooshy and warm, and it fits well. It scrunches in a suitcase and pops out looking perky and none the worse from its journey. (I am a little envious of the cardigan when it does that.)
But the real reason I’m loving it so much at the moment, I think, is that it was a very simple (i.e. boring) knit. Made in one piece from the top down, and endless, endless garter stitch. Garter stitch, for the uninitiated, is when you knit every row. So this cardigan is, actually, the same stitch, repeated thousands and thousands of times, over and over, until, at last – a cardigan.
Right now I need this cardigan to keep pointing this out to me. As I embark on the new book, wearing something that says: look what happens when you just keep doing one thing, over and over, even though each individual stitch feels as though it will have no impact because it’s so tiny. Just see how it gets there. Just see what you can do, if you remember that all of the small things add up.
(The pattern is the Greenfield Cardigan from this book – which is also where the Whale Watch Hat came from - although I decided against the leaves on the bottom. I used yarn (this one) and buttons from the lovely Treacle Wool Shop.)